An S Class Engagement: Itachi Uchiha: Preview
by Gavorchesan
Summary: A thrilling story of a young girl who dedicates her entire life to the hunt of her former friend Itachi Uchiha in this Naruto Universe thriller. OCxItachi


Blood.

The ambrosia of life. It was a common enough thing to see in the lifestyle of a ninja, but the sheer magnitude that was spattered over the entire compound was ghastly, as if someone had decided that the season's new color was that dark maroon. Now it covered my gloved hands, and the hands of the several ninja that had been the unfortunates who had been assigned to clean up.

Team Yamanaka, my team, was composed of ninja at Chunin rank, and I was the youngest at eleven. Many people said I was too little to be a Chunin, not just based on my age, but on diminutive height. I looked about eight, most people would say.

Regardless, my rank was based on my exam performance, not my age. Besides, younger people had enjoyed greater power than I would ever know. That was the ninja way. Besides, my idol, my hero, had done so much more at a younger age than I. Usually I glowed with a secret pride when thinking about him, but today, it terrified me to think of him. Where was he? Somewhere in this gory carnage? I turned my thoughts away, and I refused to let myself go to that place, and think of that possibility. If I did, all the memories of us would be replaced with the horrible nightmare before me, with him as one of the bodies I had to trace in white chalk. This carnage was like the nightmares the older ninja told about war. I looked down at my hands, now covered with cheap gloves. Red on white. How could this happen in my own backyard. My clan house was right next to the Uchiha compound, but I had heard nothing, and neither had anyone else.

"This is so, well, impossible. This wreak must have been the force of a huge party of ninja, powerful beyond belief! The Uchiha clan, the invincible Sharingan holders, all gone in one night." Jia said to me, the curvy, thirty-one year old perpetual chunin shivered in utter disgust as she finished outlining a body. She glanced my way, and looked as if she wanted send me away. I don't know what I would have done if she had been mission leader. She was convinced I was too young, and many had agreed. Yet the person in charge, that the Hokage in their wisdom had sent, was not one to let his charges off so easily, sister or not. Thank the Third that the Hokage sent Uchimoto Kazue to replace our usual team leader Inoichi Yamanaka, who was off on a separate mission.

Usually Uchimoto's parental guidance made me want to use a very rude ninjutsu sign in his direction, but I was grateful today for his strict conforming work ethic. I didn't know what would have happened if I didn't have my elder brother to tell me exactly what I needed to do and how to do it. I wouldn't know how to bury my butchered cousins.

"Team Yamanaka." Uchimoto Kazue, nicknamed the Finder ninja, and my older brother, walked into the courtyard where we had been marking the bodies in chalk. We marked their positions before we removed them into the carts which would take them to the graveyard.

He nodded at how far the three of us had gone. Aliko Hanu, the seventeen year old male with dark hair and green eyes, had been finishing putting the last bodies in the cart, and covering their faces. The stark faces of the widowed Hanna Lin, and her small child, Hakarn, now stared into oblivion. Their faces were frozen in masks, and their clan traits, that had made them so beautiful, now made them ghostly. I was glad I wore my bangs in my face, and that it was hard to see my face behind them. I myself could see my features in the dead, and I could tell my team mates could see the similarities also.

Except for blue eyes I had a striking resemblance to the Uchiha clan. As I looked into their dark, empty eyes before they were covered, I wondered what had led to this. If I would be in the cart if had truly been one of them, and not my brother's sister.

Two questions haunted me. The first and most reasonable was who would want them dead? I looked over my perfectly traced line, than at the one Jia had finished in his slapdash way. It hurt to think of people reduced to white lines, and I tried imagining as something else.

I could see a banana for a moment, and that stupid fruit almost broke my perfect non-chalice. Little Hakarn's dead form looked like a banana? I could have plunged one of the sharp kunai that inhabited a space in my pack into my eye. Or smack Jia for making it so symbolic. Uchimoto put his hand on my head, but I brushed it away. He always put his hand on my head, and it was painful to think that he would never do it again.

"Good job team. This building is done, and the other teams are almost finished. Jia, Aliko, cover the child, than take the cart to the main pile, and then go home. Take the rest of the day off and rest. That's an order from the Hokage." They both nodded, but I noticed the look they both gave me. He hadn't specified my orders.

I knew that the job wasn't done yet, but I knew why he had sent Jia and Aliko home. Even if they had been ninja awhile, Jia and Aliko couldn't have been used to the gruesome sight of such bloodshed. Uchimoto always thought I was his tough little princess ninja sister, but he wasn't pleased I was here. He never was pleased at my aspirations of being a top ninja, and he hated that I was seeing this. Blood on my white gloves. Family blood. I wouldn't sleep well.

The sky was clear blue as Jia and Aliko left the compound, carrying the covered bodies in the wooden cart behind them. Jia waved as they left and I made some hand movement that Jia must have taken as a wave. I couldn't help but feel sorry. She probably wanted to be, best girlfriends, ninja pals, but I was not a girly sort of character, wanting to join ANBU Black Op's.

She obviously wanted to be a sort of mother figure more than a ninja, and I usually was her pet. Her straight brown hair, pulled in a series of elaborate braids bobbed as she turned back to the road, talking to Aliko, who to her surprise, was listening.

It was clear that dark haired, lanky Aliko wanted to be gone as fast as possible. He could take it, but he didn't want too. He liked the simple things, including a pretty village girl who owned a restaurant. They'd probably be married soon.

Strangely, I liked them both, and worked well together, if not close. Jia was good at medical training, Aliko with his earth element, and my Genjutsu was pretty sharp, if not up to my team leaders level.

We weren't close because of me probably, and I tried no to get too involved with things that would hamper my submission into ANBU. My path was more dangerous than theirs. We had been a team for only a year, but teams break apart easily at this level, and they change quickly. Maybe Jia would simply get a new Chunin partner after Aliko left and I trained up a bit, and became ANBU.

Maybe it didn't matter now, but I sort of liked the attention she gave. I would be a Jounin soon enough. Still. The thought made me feel alone. I looked at the courtyard. My brother had disappeared, probably to check everything over. The wood was clean enough. The outside wall was tan and with little weed heads grew, hoping to gain access to climb to reach the Uchiha symbol. They would probably grow and envelop the entire compound before anything was done. It would sit empty, a layer of dust covering the family crests, and creature unworthy making it their home. I turned away, and pulled my gloves off, putting them into the trash bag we had come with. To my relief I heard familiar footsteps returning soon. Uchimoto had no love for the Uchiha's, but he respected their power like everyone else.

"The report is unbelievable. Almost every person in the Uchiha household compound has been completely cut down. Over a hundred people gone overnight. Some of our most powerful ninja were from here. This is a loss to the hidden leaf no doubt." Uchimoto came and stood next to me, dwarfing my stature. He put a hand on my head, like he always did.

I usually felt comforted, but not this time. Not when my idol was most likely gone. He looked down and pushed my hair out of my face to look at my eyes. He disliked the bangs in my face and the hair covering my eyes, but today was only proof that they worked. It was a miracle when he convinced me that I should leave the bottom half of my face un-bandaged. I never liked the looks I got with my visage, and the rumors around the Kazue and Uchiha clan, so it had been quite the fight, but in the end the 'bang' compromise was reached.

"Even the ANBU is astonished." He continued, disdainfully. Uchimoto hated the Black Op's, and I wondered how angry he would be if I told him that was my goal. I could help but notice the look he got, like he wanted to tell me something, but didn't. I was more focused on his early words. Did he say almost?

"Almost every person? What does that mean? Was there a survivor? Do they know who did it?" I turned, and felt a little hope. Was _HE_ okay? Uchimoto's hand fell off again, but by his own volition and he didn't replace it. He looked at me, but not in the eyes, and crinkled his brow, leaf head band going over his eyebrows. That always meant he revealed something he didn't want to talk about. He put a hand through his neck length hair and looked down at me, and I brushed my bangs aside.

We both had blue eyes, but I didn't think that I could have that intensity that he used to stare down people. There was something he didn't want to say, and badly. "Tell me now." I said. The truth of the matter would be town gossip tomorrow anyhow. I sometimes wondered if one of my motives for keeping my eyes covered was so I didn't have to look him in the eye, when he used the look he was using. There was no doubt he knew the entire story. He was one of the top Jonin, and he could track Chakra remnants with awesome expertise. I, for once, pushed my bangs back entirely, wanting to hear the survivor, and looked him in the eyes.

"Sasuke Uchiha, the clan heads younger son. He was the only survivor that lived through the massacre. The last true Uchiha." He looked at my headband closely, avoiding my rarely revealed eyes. "That the official record." Sasuke. The name made me think of a small face, smaller than mine, smiling. My stomach heaved, and I know I made an involuntary gag movement. Happy as I was, that was not who I was praying for. I tried recovering myself, but I knew Uchi saw me. I tried to be happy. One out of two?

"That's good." I said unconvincingly. The only ninja rule I had a problem with was feeling. I would act tough, but I would probably go home and cry like a little girl. Oh wait. I meant a baby... I pulled my hair around my face as we neared the village. I wasn't supposed to know little Sasuke, or probably be as emotionally attached to this mission as I was. I was glad Sasuke was okay, but I was only as relieved as I could be in the face of utter loss. So my best friend was dead.

My brother played along with the lies regardless, and even though he knew I was distraught. I wasn't supposed to have anything to do with the Uchiha clan. I wanted to ask about the other Uchiha I had on my mind, but I didn't dare. It really shouldn't matter, and would be suspicious.

"He's only a few years under yourself, and apparently a little bundle of surprise like yourself. He has the gained the Sharingan. Let's go." He turned to leave, and pulled me with him, strong arm around my shoulders. We walked out of the apartment back lots and into the main Uchiha road, throwing the garbage bag away as exited. The area was still busy with ninja squads cleaning. We gained more than a passing glance as we walked. I didn't blame them. We were a hot topic. We took the longer way out. Our house was the other way, but the nearest exit was the way we headed.

I was grateful Sasuke was safe, but as I thought further, something didn't add up. "Why would someone leave him alive, and kill everyone else? What happened Uchi?" I stepped forward, trying to bridge the gap between our legs. He was walking slightly in front of me, like he didn't want to show anything on his face, but I was dragging with his arm around me. "Who was the murderer?" Chunin weren't usually privy to information like that so soon, but hey, I had a Jonin brother.

"I wish I wasn't given the answer to that one little sister. Are you sure you want it?" I looked over, surprised at the weird answer. I noticed how his tightly clenched his fist became on my shoulder. He was showing more emotion in that one gesture then he showed when we performed this whole mission. Was the answer so terrible?

"Someone else will inform he the minute I go report to Hokage building. The Hokage doesn't ask at random for reports." He turned back, appraising me. His face was carefully blank.

"You're a little too clever for an eleven year old. How did you know that the Hokage requested you?" He said. Usually the good old man just had the Jonin report.

"By being extremely clever. Seriously Uchi, why else would you not send me home? Why don't you tell me who did this now?" He would tell unless he want to be irritated every second of this walk, and he knew it. "I can take it." Even though I was talking confident, I suddenly felt a shiver of ice go through my belly. If it wasn't something that disturbed him, he would tell me. Most of the time Uchimoto would tell me everything, even if I did not need, or want, to know them. Things that destabilized him to talk about we're things that he believed I couldn't comprehend, and those we're few and far between. We were ninja!

"I'm not sure you should have to hear this." It scared me how roundabout he was being. He was always polite and indirect with others, but never to me. "Every ninja have limits, you and me included. We're going to the Hokage because he wants to give you a mission, not get a report from you on this mission. As soon as I knew I ask him to send your team on a mission the next week." I nodded, understanding as a ninja, but hurt. Even though it would be suspicious, it would be best not to be at the mass Uchiha funeral. Only a Hokage assigned mission could give me the guarantee nobody would start saying horrid things about my absence.

It would stop talk about how the Uchiha and Kazue family had not been on good terms. I also noticed his avoidance and prolong another question. I didn't know why he was being so pig headed. We were long past the point of keeping secrets, being only us and Gran in the big Kazue clan house. We knew everything about each other, no matter how callous.

Hurt by his distrust, I tried to shrug it off as being stupid. I would hear the story, regardless of who told me, at the Hokage building. I looked in surprise. We were far into town, and I was surprised by how short the walk had seemed.

Villagers looked knowingly at us, the knowledge that the Uchiha's were dead already in their eyes. News travels fast. But pain and hurt come faster, and stay longer.

For a moment I wondered if would be easier if I used my interrogation techniques, but I brushed it away. Even though I was anxious to know who massacred the Uchihas that would probably be a little drastic. And Uchimoto would probably have amazing defenses against it. His Chakra had the ability spread over vast areas and find anomalies. I'm sure the moment I attempted to permeate his head he would have known something was off.

We rounded the last turn of Konoha, and I welcomed the familiar sight of the Hokage's office. It was the safest place in the world, I imagined. Safe? A peculiar notion. I held back the sadistic grin. It was the grin that only brutal experience gave a ninja the right to wear. I had no doubt that Sasuke had earned it. I did today, cleaning up the bodies of clan members.

"Itachi Uchiha."

I whipped around to look at my brother. His arm had fallen off in the trek to the Hokage, and in my haste I had eventually got in front of him. He was looking straight ahead, and I followed his gaze, but Itachi was nowhere. He was looking at the side of the Hokage building sadly. We were the only ones who were using the side ally, and HIS, my forbidden idol, name was a very strange thing to say next to garbage bins.


End file.
